Cams first time in NJ

Whirlwind

This past week in a half has been crazy. My husband and I have gone from literally one thing to another and I'm starting to feel it. This afternoon I feel nothing but wiped and of course when I feel like that Cam acts a mess. Tomorrow I won't be around because of back to school night at work and we leave at 7 in the morning on Thursday to go up to NJ for a wedding. I've been doing nothing but packing for the three of us any free chance I get. Between work, botox,work retreat, back to school night, therapy and traveling I'm wiped.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion from working and life has hit an all time high! I'm completely worn out. My husband and I had a work function this weekend so my father watched Camryn. 

Camryn is worn out too!

Pics from Today Before and After

Botox Again....

After waking up at the crack of dawn and driving over an hour to get to Miami Children's Hospital Camryn got her third dose of Botox. Everything went as planned and believe it or not she was really well behaved for not eating! The only issue we had was on the car ride home she threw up all the water she had before we left the hospital. She's a cranky tired baby now but doing well...Hopefully, we will see awesome results and Camryn will finally get overhead! Keep our fingers crossed! I'll post pictures later of before and after.

Our poor little girl has a bit of a hangover :)

Sick baby

After an entire day of rest and 2 nights and days of fever Cam is finally starting to feel better. I'm hoping she continues to improve so she can have her Botox as planned on Wednesday. 

Article about Big Babies

This article is about Big Babies and the risk of having a big baby. What struck me was of course the article about Shoulder Dystocia. I don't see it talked about often in articles...so of course I need to share it!


Article

Too many thoughts

I have so many thoughts about how my first week went back at work. It's been so overwhelming when I get home and I'm exhausted. I've been waking up before 6am everyday and last night Camryn was up almost every hour on the hour crying. Next week I'll have to be up no later than 5:30am so I can take Camryn to daycare myself. This will be an even bigger change for me, because I will be responsible for taking and picking her up. By the time I pick Camryn up and drive home I only have about an hour and half before bedtime. It's definitely a change for me since I was so used to having the whole day with her. One of the biggest challenges I had this week was getting in therapy at home at all. We went twice to therapy this week at the hospital but I usually work with her at home and do the STEM treatments as well. I didn't do either one of those things this week. It's really upsetting and at the same time really concerns me because I want to make sure Camryn progresses and improves too. I'm hoping once things transition better and Camryn starts napping better at daycare that I can start to include these things at the end of the day. I know her teacher will stretch her but is that really enough? I literally dedicated my entire year at home last year to getting Camryn to use her arm again, so for me not doing anything is completely unacceptable. I'll have to figure something out. Any ideas?

Pooped

Camryn can't handle how tired she is after a full day of school. She's having trouble napping at daycare, only 45 minutes today!

A mess

Friday is our therapy day so we did a trial run of Camryn's new schedule. It was terrible to say the least. I picked her up early from daycare and she had just fallen asleep for nap time. We drove to therapy and she was fine. She was fine during therapy too. On the way home from therapy she finally fell asleep so I drove around for an extra 30 minutes so she could sleep. When we got home she was still tired and sleeping on and off of me...she was exhausted. She finally got to the point where she lost it and was miserable for about a half hour. I honestly thought I was going to have to take her to the ER because she was completely inconsolable. I felt awful for her and didn't know what to do other than comfort her. Anyway, we will try it again this Friday but if it happens again I might have to rethink our schedule for Friday therapy.

Napping

Socially at daycare Camryn is doing great! She hasn't really cried and she's getting along with everyone. She's eating all her food and doing really well. The only thing she's struggled with the last two days is napping. Camryn is only used to napping in a pack n play or in her crib. This is something completely knew to her. She now has to nap on a mat with a sheet and blanket. Something she has never done before. Don't get me wrong Camryn has NEVER been a good napper but she usually at least gets 45 minutes in. (She had trouble napping when she had her cast on too and was stuck in the red wagon) Yesterday and today she got only 20-30 minutes each. So now, as I sit here on my couch she is a hot mess and super tired because she didn't nap long enough today. If I put her to bed too early she'll wake up too early so I'm stuck dealing with a mess of a child until it's bath and bed time. Did this happen to anyone else? Do they ever get used to napping not in their crib?

Learning What Hands Up Means

Cam has finally learned what Hands up means. Though she can only get her arm up a little past 45 degrees against gravity it's a step in the right direction. My husband put a toy she wanted over her head today and she got really high! He couldn't believe it, of course her arm was a little bent but again we are moving in the right direction.

Has anyone had experience with things taking longer to heal on their affected arm? Camryn's bug bite is taking forever to heal and was just wondering how common it is.

Playing with Soap

Today in therapy Camryn got to play with foam soap! She loved it and even got overhead a couple times!

Camryn's First Day of School

She did great this morning. She only went for a half day but there was no crying. She ate lunch there and did a great job. They said she was in the library reading a ton and loved being outside. We'll see how tomorrow
goes!

Daycare

Camryn starts daycare tomorrow! I'm so nervous and I'm filled with anxiety today. She's going to start out with half days so she can transition to being away from for the entire day. The daycare she's going to she will only be at a short time because we may be moving and we are putting her closer to where I"ll be working. I don't know if that is great idea but I don't have a choice because I start work officially on the 12th and Camryn's daycare doesn't start until the 19th. So the daycare around the corner from our house will have to do for 2 weeks. I'm sure it'll be fine and Cam adjusts really well, but I think it's me who needs the transition more than her. I've been home with her all day and all night for over a year now. It's going to be a long day tomorrow for me.

Lego Therapy

Life's Up's and Downs

Over the past couple weeks my husband and I found a great deal on a townhouse in a great neighborhood and put an offer on it. There was a bidding war which is pretty common down here and we got it! Great News right! Well, it turns out in the search for a mortgage that the townhouse doesn't qualify for the First Time Home Buyer's mortgage which is what we were counting on. It would have been a perfect place for us. Closer to both of our jobs, and of course closer to Cam's therapy.

Yesterday, after I had heard the good news about our offer being accepted I went on the search for a new daycare for Camryn. I was completely stressed out about it.  I didn't want to drive north to bring Camryn to daycare it would be completely out of the way for everyone. I found an awesome place that I totally felt great about. I pre-enrolled her on the spot. It's a Reggio Emilia inspired school. I really felt so positive about it. Camryn loved it too!

Well, after a long day of stress and finally figuring things out we found out about the mortgage and I was just completely heartbroken. We haven't given up hope yet, but this definitely puts a damper on our moving plans. So, everything is on hold right now. 

I still want to keep Camryn in the daycare I found yesterday because it's on the way to work and on the way home which means it's also on the way to therapy. That means on days I have to take Cam to therapy it will cut a half hour off my commute. Instead of spending an hour and half in the car it will only be an hour. I also really liked the school and felt good about it that it's worth it. It's not all the way by my work but close enough that if my husband has to pick Camryn up, he can.

I really hope everything works out for us with this townhouse, because it will make life a little bit easier for us with therapy and of course financially in the long run too. I really hope that after such a long year with Cam and the struggles that my husband and I have had over the past year that things can finally start to look up with us and work out.